The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#1 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:23 am

A24 has picked up Awkwafina-led the Farewell from Sundance after a bidding war. Oscar nominee Awkwafina? We really are living through wild times

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: The Films of 2019

#2 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:32 am

I watched an entire SNL episode she hosted and I still have no idea who she is and have never heard anyone speak about her in public

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Films of 2019

#3 Post by knives » Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:05 pm

She's a rapper who has successfully transitioned into acting.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: The Films of 2019

#4 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:23 pm

I gathered that much

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Films of 2019

#5 Post by knives » Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:25 pm

I was just taking you literally at your word. Personally I'm a fan though I guess I'm in the target demographic.

User avatar
Apperson
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#6 Post by Apperson » Thu Sep 26, 2019 1:53 pm

I had to look for a minute to find this thread, I would've thought one of the indie hits of the summer would merit some discussion at least.

Anyway I saw this a few hours ago and it's currently my favourite film of the year, in broad strokes it reminds me a lot of Lady Bird (one of my favourites of 2017, go figure) in its depiction of an independent college age girl and how it blends fact and film-making to the point where I can't tell what was embellished if anything. Unlike Lady Bird however it's more focused on the experiential and is much more down to earth, and especially is more explicit in recurring back upon it's themes, for instance near the beginning it's established that the family is getting the lung cancer changed to 'benign-shadows' in the medical reports, then when Nai-Nai mentions a house guest to Billi she says something to the effect of "If you live on your own and went to the bathroom, all you would see is your own shadow".

This is just what I came verbalize about the film right now, but definitely seek it out if you haven't yet, it might later yet become perfect in my own eyes and Lulu Wang and Awkwafina deserve all the praise and success and box-office and awards etc etc.

rawlinson
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:35 pm

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#7 Post by rawlinson » Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:15 pm

One thing, she's not college age, she's around 30.

User avatar
Apperson
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#8 Post by Apperson » Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:20 pm

Fair enough, I was basing my statement on the Guggenheim Fellowship but I don't really know anything about it aside from what was presented in the film.

User avatar
Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
Location: NYC

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#9 Post by Black Hat » Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:27 am

I'm pretty stunned this thread has barely had any activity. Have none of you seen this? What a wonderful film full of truth, detailing the complicated dance of holding on and letting go that occurs for all immigrant families. Of course it always comes down to your grandmother and as with so many immigrant families, including my own, Grandma's a boss. Awkwafina's great here, she really captures what it's like to not really be American or not be Chinese/where your parents are from. The script is smart, using events everyone understands like weddings to communicate cultural differences, but also how we're the same. There's a hilarious, beautifully shot Chinese drinking game played at the wedding that's the best scene I've scene this year. It's also a film about memory, time, and the inherent conflict between yearning for nostalgia while earnestly seeking progress. I left this film happy, feeling a bit more understood and perhaps best of all learned a lot about how the family dynamic works in a culture different than my own.

User avatar
Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#10 Post by Aunt Peg » Thu Oct 24, 2019 5:27 am

I haven't got anything good to say about this film so I won't say anything.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#11 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:19 pm

Aunt Peg wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 5:27 am
I haven't got anything good to say about this film so I won't say anything.
I haven't got anything good to say about this post so I will say that you shouldn't make posts like this here.

User avatar
Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
Location: NYC

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#12 Post by Black Hat » Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:58 pm

Peggy, I'd love to hear this film get dragged and why.

User avatar
Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#13 Post by Aunt Peg » Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:43 am

Black Hat wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:58 pm
Peggy, I'd love to hear this film get dragged and why.
Here is what I posted on another site:

"Goodness I loathed this film.

Talk about amateur hour. Sketchy broad characterisations is being generous, the most shockingly bad cinematography I've probably ever seen though this was no doubt an aesthetic choice by the director but I don't think it helped the film one bit. Its such a contrived set-up to begin with and everything felt so forced and phoney.

Awkwafina (such a delight in Crazy Rich Asians) is so stilted and lifeless in this. She walks around for the entire film with a sullen expression on her face and hunched over like a tortoise/turtle stretching its neck out from its shell in anticipation of some terrible event. Shuzhen Zhao is one-note as the dying grannie and has the charm of a rotting piece of fruit. Its not really fair to make an judgement on the rest of the cast because they are given very little or nothing to do. The characters of the cousin and his Japanese wife were beyond offensive quite frankly and played for nothing more than cheap laughs.

I can't imagine anything else contending for Oscar consideration this year being worse."

Just another comment to add, not my own but from my partner. He loathed the film as well as noted that every 10 minutes it was trotted out that 'Don't let grandma know she's dying'. Each time in a different place. Just know he said to 'Awful, tedious film'.

Actually, had lunch at a friends a couple of weeks ago. There were only four of us there but we all agreed on how terrible this film was.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#14 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:49 am

Now there's the good stuff we were all waiting for.

User avatar
willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#15 Post by willoneill » Sun Oct 27, 2019 6:29 pm

Overall I really liked the film, and Awkwafina transitioned well to drama and will hopefully do more work like this. But there is an element to the film that always bothered me, both in how it is plotted and how it is acted, but it's a bit spoiler-ish, so ...
SpoilerShow
Most viewers will probably know going in that the plot is that the family goes back to China to see their mother/grandmother, who is dying of cancer but doesn't know it. Yet throughout the film, the portrayal of the grandmother makes it seem as if she actually does, but won't admit it. And honestly, I kept expecting that to be a third act moment, but it never comes. And then, during the credits, they show footage of the real-life inspiration for the grandmother character, who is both still alive, and (supposedly) still ignorant of her terminal illness.

My issues are two-fold: 1. I call bullshit on the real-life woman not knowing. It very much reminds of of my own family where members tried to keep things from my grandmother as if she was some kind of idiot that she most definitely wasn't.
2. Is the actress portraying the grandmother guilty of imperfect acting because she (the actress) knows something she (the character) doesn't, but can't hide from her own performance? Or, is the film trying to have the character both ways?

User avatar
lzx
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#16 Post by lzx » Sun Oct 27, 2019 9:17 pm

willoneill wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2019 6:29 pm
SpoilerShow
...the portrayal of the grandmother makes it seem as if she actually does, but won't admit it.
That's a fascinating point, and it did not occur to me at all when I was watching it - could you perhaps provide some examples that led you to that impression? I'm not as big a fan of Zhao Shuzhen's acting as many others, as it comes across as overly theatrical in many scenes, but to me Nai Nai certainly acts like
SpoilerShow
she completely falls for the wedding ruse.

As for her real-life counterpart, I believe she does know about her cancer, since it's pretty much impossible to hide the movie from her and the possibility of her surviving for this long without some form of chemotherapy is near zero...

User avatar
willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#17 Post by willoneill » Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:58 am

Responding to lzx:
SpoilerShow
In the opening sequence when the grandmother is at the hospital being diagnosed, when her sister(?) reads the results, the grandmother is clearly expecting bad news and is briefly surprised when she gets good news.
Awkwafina's parents tell her not to come to China because she can't hide her feelings, and when Awkwafina shows up anyways ... she can't hide her feelings! (this is think is intentional, not a bad performance)
At various times the grandmother is clearly sick (coughing, weak) and her face reads as if she knows something is wrong
Finally, the end goodbyes are clearly acted by the grandmother as if she knows (believes?) she will never see most of her family again
There were a couple of other moments but it's been a couple of months since I watched the film.
Also, to your spoiler point, this is what I had read in the IMDB Trivia section (normally not that trustworthy, but it comes from a reputable source):
SpoilerShow
During a July 2019 interview with Terry Gross on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," Lulu Wang explained that not only is the lie that forms the basis for this movie's plot a true family story (in that Wang's own family really did lie to Wang's grandmother about her terminal cancer diagnosis), they have also all continued lying to her about both her health and the plot of this movie, since giving her detailed information about the film's story would also give away the initial lie about her untreatable cancer. "My grandmother came to the production start party. And she met all of the actors and clearly saw that they were playing, you know, members of our family. And Shuzhen Zhao, the actress who played my grandmother, actually wanted to meet her. And so she went over there to her house for breakfast. And they spent the morning together. And so, you know, eventually, my grandmother came to know that the film is about our family. But I told her that, you know, it was just this sort of immigration story about this family who left and are coming back for a reunion because of a wedding, which, you know, is only a lie by omission. It's a lie. But, you know, I think that it wasn't that difficult to keep up because even when she visited set, a lot of the scenes that she saw reflected that plot that I told her." Wang also confirmed to Gross that her family assumed that lying about the movie's plot wouldn't pose a problem because the grandmother would likely die before it came out, which did not happen.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#18 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 05, 2019 5:36 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:23 am
Oscar nominee Awkwafina?
Now that I've seen this, her being in contention is even more confusing. Acting sullen and having bad posture = awards worthy. I didn't hate this as much as Aunt Peg, but I did think it was fairly trite and conventional (we get every cliche you can think of in this one, including a running across town to beat the clock scene and a slow motion center-framed shot of Sadness In Public after An Important Emotional Moment). The spoilered info in the IMDB link above is more interesting than anything here-- a meta film about the making of this movie would probably have been time and energy better spent

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

#19 Post by knives » Thu Dec 12, 2019 6:01 pm

I'll co-sign to Dom's feelings. This isn't the worst, but it is so boringly conventional and vacant in an A24 sort of way that the movie begins to be forgotten as it plays. I really adore Awkwafina's performances elsewhere, but literally anyone could have done what she does here as she doesn't use the thematic rope that Wang explicitly blasts at us every minute to add anything to her performance. I wish I could see the success that Black Hat mentions, but I don't see this film as touching upon those things in a compelling manner.

Post Reply